One person enjoying the St Patrick’s Day celebrations took a taxi from Dublin to Letterkenny, clocking up a total of 250km.
The demand for taxis in Dublin was up 3.5 times last night from a regular Thursday, according to data from one hailing platform.
The Paddy’s Day celebrations can become so rowdy that sometimes you just don’t want to leave. That may have been the case for someone in Letterkenny last night, after they took a taxi from Dublin back home.
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Information from taxi-hailing platform Bolt revealed that their longest journey last night was 250km, as someone needed to get to Letterkenny from Dublin.
Bolt also found that they were 3.5 times busier than on a regular Thursday, with their busiest time between midnight and 4am. During this time frame, their usage was up 30 times from the same time last week.
They were still kept going at 5am, bringing home any last stragglers from the night out.
The most popular destinations, according to Bolt, included Temple Bar, Harcourt Street and the airport. The most popular pick-up points were Baggot Street, Temple Bar and Harcourt Street.
Operations Manager for Bolt, James Bowpitt, said: "As expected, St. Patrick's Day resulted in huge demand for taxis throughout the day with peak demand at midnight.”
He pointed out that the amount of taxis in Dublin is down, despite high demand after lockdown restrictions.
“Nonetheless, it’s plain that Dublin county needs more taxis,” he said.
“The total registered SPSV Taxi fleet in Dublin is just 9,517, down 235 vehicles from 2020.
“So although the customer demand has come back, there has actually been a reduction of registered SPSV taxi vehicles.”
This is not something that has gone unnoticed by passengers, either. One Tweeted last week: “The taxi situation in Dublin is absolutely horrendous at the moment. It now feels like you have won the lottery when you manage to get a taxi home. This is beyond an inconvenience now, it’s a safety issue.
“There aren’t good enough public transport options available beyond 11pm/midnight between the DART/Luas/nightlink. Only safe option for a lot of people is a taxi.”
Another said: “Honestly at the stage you’d be put off leaving your house on a Saturday night in Dublin considering it’ll take 4 hours to get a taxi."
